just do very, very short, smooth strokes, as if you're wiping away a fingerprint or a speck of dust from the screen.

Holding the finger down on the screen increases the 'rocket' speed, so is only used to get quickly away from something (like a UFO) or collecting a Minotaur near the sun. The rocket's movement has inertia, so needs a spin/corrective blast to slow/stop the ship once it's away from danger.

Maybe play Deep Space (starting on level 1) before trying Solar, so you get used to the moving/turning/firing before having to contend with a sun and its gravity.

While I haven't tried it on my iPhone yet on my iPad the controls do feel a little too sensitive. While it's something I'm quickly getting used to it took me a little bit to go "maybe do smaller strokes".

But honestly - It would be a nice addition to have an option to be able to thrash my paws at the screen widely when I get an excited play through on the game.

Thanks for the replies - good advice about starting with the deep space levels.

I've spent a fair bit of time trying to get used to it, and I'm afraid I've given up. I just find the control method baffling. My instinct is to keep a finger on the screen all the time, and then expect movements of it to control the ship - I know that isn't what the instructions say to do though.

When I try to just stroke the screen, I don't really find a good connection between my finger movements and the ship movements; often the ship turns in the opposite direction to the one I wanted. The "rotate ship" and "thrust" controls aren't clearly separate and I find myself unable to instruct the ship to clearly do one or the other.

I think it would have helped to have a fuller description of exactly how the finger movements are interpreted by the game - I guess for a lot of you it's immediately and instinctively obvious.

kurst wrote:While I haven't tried it on my iPhone yet on my iPad the controls do feel a little too sensitive. While it's something I'm quickly getting used to it took me a little bit to go "maybe do smaller strokes".

But honestly - It would be a nice addition to have an option to be able to thrash my paws at the screen widely when I get an excited play through on the game.

Spent way too much time typing this up - got get back into the game.

.. I have to ask this .. is that a fursuit/mask of yours in that avatar ? If it is, it's really awesome

Yeah the key is to use the stroking motion for most of the time. Small strokes to orient, larger ones to move. Hold and drag should be reserved for those times when you really need to move quickly somewhere, like zipping round the screen wrap to attack a saucer from the opposite side, or for hauling your ass out of the gravity well if you've gone too close to the sun .

I liken the control action to being like using a small imaginary trackball with my thumb .

I'd also suggest playing a bit of Deep Space if it's taking you a while to get used to the controls. At least in the earlier levels it's a more chilled out pace and without the constant effect of the gravity well it can be an easier place to learn the controls.

Deep Space is far from being easy though once you go through a few levels and the rocks start to get attracted to you...

I'd also like to see an option to change the sensitivity of the controls.

The game plays really well on my iPad, but when I move over to my iPhone everything seems a lot more sensitive? Ideally, I'd like the control area to be the same as on the iPad and not scaled down in relation to the screen resolution or graphics size on the phone.